


The Opportunities We Miss

by Locohelli



Category: Glee
Genre: Afterlife, Brief mention of canon characters - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Death, M/M, Memoir, Mention of Suicide Attempt, One-Sided Attraction, Prompt Based, Unrequited Love, lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29632836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locohelli/pseuds/Locohelli
Summary: Just after you die, but before you move on to your afterlife, you get the opportunity to read your own memoir, with everything you have known. Sebastian takes this opportunity, but as he sees a footnote leading to a chapter in someone else's book, he can't help but be curious why someone he barely knows, seems to have a chapter dedicated to him.
Relationships: Rory Flanagan/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8
Collections: /r/FanFiction Prompt Challenge #22 / February 2021





	The Opportunities We Miss

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this as a bit of an experiment, but if I can't experiment with my boys Rory and Sebastian, then who else could I do it with? So this is actually based on two different prompts. One of them is the February Challenge Prompt on r/FanFiction, which was just writing a memoir/biography, while the other one is:  
> "You discover a library with a biography for everyone on earth. While reading your own, you notice that whenever someone else i mentioned, there's a footnote showing where you can find their biography. It's odd how someone who was only a sentence in your book has a whole chapter for you." - Credit to writing.prompt.s 
> 
> It kind of helped getting me back into fanfic writing, and it's been fun exploring a different way of storytelling, although a bit short. Well, without further ado, I hope you like it.

When you die, everything fades, but before you meet your final death, you get one opportunity to look back at your life and everything that happened, and in some ways you get to look for the missed opportunities.

Some take the opportunity and other people don't. Sebastian, who led a life with a lot of regrets, almost didn't, but as he was faced with his own book, he couldn't help but grab it, and then start turning the pages.

It started in his early childhood, and as the names came up in the text, there were always a footnote, about where he could find the event in the other participants’ books. First his parents, and then his nannies. Most of them just referenced to a line on the page.

He went through the years, and as such came to his high school years, how he went after Blaine, and then the troubles with One Direction, and his friendships in the Warblers.

It was only when he reached the footnotes on one of the pages he blinked. _Rory Flanagan, The_ _M_ _issed_ _O_ _pportunity._

He could barely remember the Irishman, and the only note about him in his own book had been a brief mention of him being there when he had thrown the slushie. _Why did it reference a whole chapter?_

Sebastian looked up from where he was sitting and up towards the library that surrounded him. If everything here was a book of someone else, then he could find this book, read it and figure out why he had his own chapter.

He got up, and as he started looking through the books. The book wasn’t hard to find, like the library knew what he was looking for, and as such he grabbed it, and then sat down to read the chapter.

***

_Rory Flanagan – The Missed Opportunity_

As I stared at him, I completely lost my breath. He was absolutely gorgeous, and while I had always been scared of this strange attraction I felt towards other boys, and honestly being unsure if I even _was_ attracted to guys, this kind of just sealed the deal. The uniform was sitting perfectly on his slim but defined frame, and the hair was slicked back. A smirk was in place on the face, and his eyes seemed to dig into all of us as he stared at us.

I don't even know why they were at our Sectionals, since they're our rivals, but we ran across them after our performance and everything had finished. The Warblers have always been easy to distinguish by their uniforms, so I knew right off the bat, that he was one of them. I didn’t know any of their names, except one, _Sebastian Smythe,_ because Kurt and Blaine had spoken of them briefly. He was the leader of the Warblers, and with the way people were gathered around him, I had a pretty good idea of who he was. The main thing that tipped me off, was the look Kurt’s eyes as he stared at them, and Sebastian _'s_ smirk just seemed to grow bigger.

I never actually got the opportunity to speak with him, since Kurt ushered us all further away from them, until we couldn’t see them anymore. It’s not like I would have known what to say, if I had actually gotten the opportunity, but my heart wouldn't stop hammering in my chest though, and I just _knew_ that I couldn't just forget about him. Even Kurt's warnings about not trusting him didn't do much., but I still knew it was mostly wishful thinking on my end.

After the first meeting I would occasionally see him, even though we rarely went to the same places. Kurt would complain about him though, a lot, and then, for some reason, the Warblers decided they wanted to steal our song selection for Regionals.

I don't know what happened, but when we gathered at the Glee club for practice, people were talking about it, and the next thing I knew, we were in a parking lot, having a singing duel. I barely remember the duel, but I remember feeling like my heart froze as Sebastian threw that slushie and Blaine clutched at his eyes. I had no idea at that point what had happened, but that was no ordinary slushie. All I could do was stare at Blaine, and while I never managed to watch a glimpse of how Sebastian looked, I still couldn't believe he would do something as _gruesome._

It was only much later I found out that he knew what had been in it, and that it had been meant for Kurt. It was suddenly like I couldn’t find any rest, and I didn't know what to do. We spoke about it in the Glee club, but everyone just agreed that Sebastian was a bad person. I couldn't fault them for thinking that, because I felt that way too, but I wanted to believe that he was better than that, and then finally... as we tried to show them what Michael Jackson had been all about, it struck me _how right they were_. Kurt was able to move on from it, and he had been one of the ones who had suffered the most, since he knew his boyfriend had taken the hit for him. Sebastian on the other hand looked like he felt no remorse.

As Sebastian left the auditorium I just knew that that had to be the end of my silly feelings. No matter how strong those feelings felt, they didn't matter. I would never be able to look myself in the eyes, if that was the type of person I was going after. Someone who would hurt another person because of a silly rivalry, and barely feel any remorse about it, and as such, I decided to burrow my feelings.

Getting rid of feelings were a lot harder than I would have imagined. I think it was probably a good thing that Valentines Day was coming up, if I have to be honest. Sugar was never really the ideal. She was pretty, sure, and occasionally nice, but she was just... what I needed. I think I honestly was more into it, because of the competition that sprung up between me and Artie. I felt bad for him, and when the day came and I had won, i _t felt wrong._

The only reason I had this date was because I was trying to get over Sebastian, and as the date ended, and I was lying in my bed, I got thinking.

What I did wasn't exactly fair, but I didn’t know how much longer I would have at McKinley, and maybe what I needed, to get over Sebastian, was someone who could take my attention for a while. I had enjoyed the date, if not for the ice block in my stomach. I had lied to her, multiple times, but I wanted to actually try. Sometimes you get the love you go for, and I think that was one way I could choose to do it. Maybe I was only stuck on Sebastian because I had no one else.

I would make sure my last few months were good, and in the middle of that night, I decided that I wanted to put everything I had into my relationship with Sugar. It might not have been fair to her, but Sebastian did not deserve my heart, not that he had ever looked my way.

The next day when I showed up at school Sugar had my full attention, and if my heart ached every time someone mentioned the Warblers, no one seemed to know. They were too wrapped up in their own drama.

The only time my heart wavered were at Regionals, right around when Dave Karofsky almost killed himself. Sebastian was sitting in the audience, and as we finished, my eyes looked on him for a moment. He cheered and he looked so happy for us, and just for that one moment, I couldn't help thinking _what if he hadn't been a bad person,_ and _what if we had ever had a chance._

***

Sebastian closed the book once again, his eyes a bit blank, and there were only one thought going through his head, _how many chapters were there dedicated to him, how many opportunities had he missed?_ He could only barely remember this _Rory_ 's face, but as he looked back to his own book, he didn't actually want to continue on this journey of reading. Sometimes it was better not knowing.

He got up from his seat and then, he just left, content with leaving his life behind and not knowing what else he might have missed in the last lifetime.


End file.
